I am a Microsoft C# MVP, author, speaker, blogger, developer, and creator of WP Requests and WinStore Requests.
I've been involved with computers in one way or another for as long as I can remember, but started professionally in 1993. Although my primary focus right now is commercial software applications, I prefer building infrastructure components, reusable shared libraries and helping companies define, develop and automate process and code standards and guidelines.

The Microsoft sponsored GotDotNet developer community site is shutting down! All of the functionality will be phased out by July 2007, so there isn't much time left. According to the announcement, Microsoft is phasing out GotDotNet for the following reasons: Eliminate redundant functionality between GDN and other community resources provided by Microsoft Traffic and usage has significantly decreased over the last 6 months Reinvest the resources in new and better community features The phase out schedule ......

A while ago I posted a entry about Community Credit. I don't remember what the membership count was when I joined, but it's almost at 7000 members now! I don't know if there is an official record of the most number of new users in a day, but it would be cool if the site could it the 7000 mark by the end of March 1st. The nice thing about the site is that it serves as a central "clearing house" for all of your tech related accomplishments, such as blog posts, comments, discussion board posts, articles, ......

I know several other people who received an email from Microsoft late last week titled "Important Daylight Savings Time Update for Developers". As far as I know, none of us are exaclty sure why we recieved these emails but we all figured that at some point we signed up for something .NET and developer related with Microsoft. Just in case you didn't "get the memo", here are the relevant parts: Developers who use the .NET Framework may find their applications affected if the application uses the time ......

A new book on WCF was just published by Juval Lowy at IDesign. For those of you that don't know, Juval is Microsoft's Regional Director for the Silicon Valley area and has helped in the internal strategic design reviews for the .NET Framework. He has presented sessions at the last two Tech·Ed conferences on WCF and helped shape the technical strategy and direction for WCF with Microsoft. I haven't picked up my copy yet, but will be getting one soon. The book focuses on the "why" behind particular ......

I received an email today from Snap letting me know about a contest they are running to help improve Snap Preview Anywhere (SPA). They have already started making improvements and are looking for ideas on how to make things even better. Since there are over 650,000 websites and blogs that use SPA, it shouldn't be hard to get a lot of good ideas. The hard part will be sifting through them to find the ones that can actually be done. So far, there are 57 entries. The top 3 ideas submitted will win $2500, ......

Earlier this month, I posted a summary of the technical tracks available for Tech·Ed 2007. As I was putting the summary together, I noticed that WPF was not listed. Well, Rob Relyea, the PM on the WPF team noticed my post and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is now officially listed under the "Developer Tools and Technologies" track ......

I just noticed that my Tech·Ed Technical Tracks Summary post was just listed as a TechEd Bloggers Editor's Pick for Sunday, February 18. I also received some feedback from Rob Relyea, the Program Manager for the WPF Team (http://rrelyea.spaces.live... regarding my Tech·Ed Technical Tracks - Where's WPF? post stating that they are working on fixing this issue. I'm looking forward to seeing the updated sessions covering WPF ......

Reflector 5.0 was just released today. If you haven't already downloaded, do it now. It has a ton of new features, and makes version 4 pale in comparison. In fact, there are so many new features that Lutz has put together a PowerPoint slideshow that gives an overview of what's new. One of the coolest new features is a custom protocol handler that will really show the versatility of Reflector. If you already have Reflector 5 installed, you can navigate directly to a code item through a code:// URL. ......

Since I've been looking into writing a custom Visual Studio package, I came across a nice set of free "gadgets" from SlickEdit. These can only be described as a set of very cool power toys for Visual Studio. These gadgets will only work with Visual Studio 2005, but should work with any of the Visual Studio 2005 editions except the Express Editions. I think these gadgets are aimed at creating more business for the Tools v1.1 for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 product, which also has some very nice features ......

As I was writing my previous post, I found an odd spelling correction suggested by the Windows Live Writer spell checker. It would appear that the suggested spelling for MSBuild is Sybil. That might just explain things.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there is an apparent bug in the Metaweblog API that prevents me from specifying the full path to the FxCopCmd executable. I'm not entirely sure what is actually happening, but I do know that it doesn't allow the post to be submitted through either Windows Live Writer or through the blog Admin UI. The strangest part of this is that it appears to only care about this particular executable. I've tried several others, both command line and GUI applications and they ......

I don't know about you, but I have always felt that Microsoft did a huge injustice to the development community by leaving the Static Code Analysis capability out of Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition. Just in case you don't know what this is, it is an integrated version of FxCop that allows you to configure Code Analysis and view the results from within Visual Studio. I'm not going to go into details about why Code Analysis is beneficial (perhaps I'll save that for another post), but having ......

I was scanning through the list of technical tracks for Tech·Ed this morning and noticed an odd omission. Windows Presentation Found (WPF) is only listed once, under the "Connected Systems" track: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 programming model for Windows that offers new technologies for building applications for seamless communication across technology boundaries and for composing services. These new technologies are Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow ......

There are 14 core tracks and 2 virtual tracks at Tech·Ed this year, which will cover more than 1,000 sessions. In case you're wondering, a virtual track is a collection of sessions or labs that share a common theme but span several tracks. The Session Scheduler launches in April and we will get our first real look at the actual sessions available in each track. Until then, we have to be content to speculate. Looking at the technical tracks page, it became clear to me that there is a lot of information ......

The other night I needed to purchase a new wireless router for my home network. I have had a Netgear MR814 wireless router for about 5 years now and have never had any problems with it. I needed a new one since I was sending this one out to my ex. Since I have had such good luck with this router, I knew that I was going to purchase another Netgear router. I wasn't prepared, however, for the number of different choices. (When I bought mine, that was pretty much the only choice if you wanted to spend ......

Microsoft just announced Windows Mobile 6 (press release) at the 3GSM World Conference in Barcelona, Spain. The first WM6 powered devices will start hitting the streets by the second quarter of this year, and many companies are planning upgrade options for existing WM5 devices. There are a lot of changes in this release, but Microsoft has really focused on improving usability and adding support for more Microsoft Office features. The user interface has received a much needed face-lift, giving it ......

Just last night I received a private email asking for the install of my XFN™ Live Writer Plugin from Alexander Groß in Germany. After exchanging some emails to get him the installer, I was able to look at the Live Writer plugin he created for Windows Live Writer. I am probably in the minority here, since I don't usually listen to music on my computer while I'm doing anything, but for those of you who do, this is a great plugin. This is version 2.0, and has been completely rewritten from his earlier ......

Hopefully everyone that lives in the United States (or deals with United States based companies) has heard that the U.S. Congress has changed the dates for Daylight Saving Time (DST) starting this year. The changes are the result of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and modifies the Uniform Time Act of 1966 by changing the start and end dates of daylight saving time. These changes mean that any electronic devices that were pre-programmed for adjusting to daylight saving time will be obsolete and incorrect. ......

I have added Snap Previews for all of the external links on the site. The preview will only trigger when the mouse hovers over the preview icon, so hopefully it won't be too intrusive. There is also an "opt in" badge located in the "News" column that lets you turn previews on. Once they are turned on, you can turn them off again through the options link available from any preview. It does look like there are a few issues with the previews where some sites are not being displayed. I'm not sure if ......

The long awaited 1.9.4 release is finally here. This release fixes a number of bugs and implements a few new features. One of the more significant features is the Sitemap implementation. You can find more information on the implementation and instructions on how to set it up on David's blog. There is also a new set of XFN icons to go along with Subtext's XFN Highlighter. I think the new icons and highlighter will work very well with my new XFN Link Editor for Windows Live Writer (once it finally ......

While searching for some blog search engines and aggregators to add to my list of ping servers in Windows Live Writer, I came across autopinger. AutoPinger is a FREE and convenient service for all bloggers and podcasters. It is an easy set-and-forget service that lets concentrate more on developing your favourite blogs and podcasts...Autopinger will check your blogs and podcast feeds every 30 mins. This is a pretty neat idea, and they do provide an XML-RPC interface in addition to allowing you to ......

I know it's only been a couple of days, but there were a few things that were bothering me about my XFN™ plugin for Live Writer. The biggest issue (and really the one that everything else centered around) was that once a link was inserted, you couldn't edit it again without recreating it. I doubt anyone would have really felt this was a problem, but it was annoying enough to me that I decided to do something about it. The changes centered around making the plugin a SmartContentSource rather than ......

Tech·Ed is well known for the Birds-of-a-Feather, or BOF, sessions. These sessions let you meet people with similar interests and challenges in an open-forum environment. BOFs are organized by INETA, the developer user group and Culminis, the IT pro user group. Because these sessions are led by third-party experts, attendees enjoy free-flowing dialogues about products, technologies, and solutions without necessarily focusing on Microsoft. The sessions are suggested by the developer and IT pro community ......

I was recently introduced to the concept of XFN through a blog post I was reading from Phil Haack regarding his meeting with Rob Conery, one of the Subsonic developers. After reading about XFN, I think it is an extremely interest concept on the entire social networking phenomenon. Taken from the XFN website: XFN puts a human face on linking. As more people have come online and begun to form social networks, services such as Technorati and Feedster have arisen in an attempt to show how the various ......

I tried to do this for last years Tech·Ed, but wasn't as successful as I would have liked. This was mostly due to the fact that I didn't really know I was going until last minute. Anyway, this year should be different. I have registered this blog in Tech·Ed Bloggers, so wherever you see the "Blogger Guy" on any website, you should be able to go directly to the Tech·Ed Bloggers site ......

Hopefully I'm not jumping the gun, but I was just given a tentative "green light" to be able to go to Tech·Ed again this year. This year, the focus will be on all of the newly released products, such as Vista, Exchange Server 2007, Office 2007, and ASP.NET AJAX. I'll see you there ......

One of the cooler "eye-candy" type effects possible with WPF is the ability to create reflections. Reflections can be made of pretty much anything and are relatively simple to create. There is a good tutorial on creating reflections using Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression Blend. The drawback to creating reflections is that you have to repeat the steps for every reflection. Fortunately, one of the developers at Infragistics has created a custom control that allows you to easily create reflections. ......

Anyone who has been using WPF has, by now, realized that one of the most versatile controls in Windows Forms is missing! I'm referring to the DataGridView. The WPF ListView does have a very powerful Grid View mode that can be used to get around this limitation for a lot of situations. However, for those times when you really do need the power and flexibility of a true data grid, you were out of luck unless you wanted to host the Windows Forms control. All of that changed at the end of January when ......

Based on some of the article comments, I have just posted an update to this article on Code Project. The update includes support for the January CTP of Orcas, currently called .NET Framework v3.5 and also adds methods to get the actual version number and the Windows Foundation library (WPF, WCF, WF, and CardSpace) information. I have also changed the title to "Using managed code to detect what .NET Framework versions and service packs are installed". Hopefully the title change won't cause any problems ......

ClustrMaps is the only hit counter that (i) accurately shows you the locations of all visitors to your site on a thumbnail map embedded in your page, (ii) uses dot-clusters that scale up to huge numbers, and (iii) lets you store old maps in an archive. Well, I finally took the plunge and added a ClutrMaps counter to my blog. Since I started this blog almost 9 months ago, I have seen referrals from all of the world (most through Google and other search engines). It has been cool knowing that my little ......

“This isn’t a fantasy world. It’s a world like Earth. Power here is based on ignorance. On superstition. On deception. Not on magic. Not on anything mystical or paranormal. This ‘power’ wielded by the Hood is rooted, deeply rooted, in pure, blind fear.” StormScape is a new Science Fiction/Fantasy book published by Joe Wells, who happens to be a friend of mine. The book was just published on Lulu late last month. If you like sci-fi books, this one is well worth it. I'm looking forward to the release ......

I have just posted a new article on Code Project that provides the definitive way to determine which versions and service packs of the .NET Framework are installed on the client computer. This article provides a single class that encapsulates the various methods required for determing the version and service pack of the various .NET Framework releases and is based on information available on MSDN and Aaron Stebner's WebLog ......